A friend once told me 'I worry about a group of people who have enough near death experiences to have a TLA for it'.
I suppose that the ongoing set of tales that i brought to our weekly meetings were an indication that from her perspective, I lived my life slightly closer to the edge than she, but the term NDE is not just an indication that I had come close to death but more a flag that had a rapidly diminishing quantity of objective risks all come up with sixes on their dice then conceivably I could not be here to tell the tale.
Coming from a clique of people who live and play outdoors I do have a tendency to tell tales which end with 'later back in the pub, bleeding from both ears...' and so the expression NDE is used to make light of events which 'we' all know could have turned out worse. I guess its an unspoken agreement to live our lives to the fullest and not dwell to much on the past or what might have been because we all know as soon as the mortgage and rugrats grab a hold of your commitment to the lifestyle then for most people it is all over. No more NDE's for you and I think that is a sad thing, as how can you be truly living unless you accept that one day you are going to die.